


In the Silence Between Words

by zelda_zee



Category: Lost
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 07:14:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7881733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zelda_zee/pseuds/zelda_zee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom and Sarah</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Silence Between Words

**Author's Note:**

> First posted on Livejournal for the 2007 Lost Summer Luau.

“My son hates me,” Tom says. “Hates me.” It’s as if he is speaking to himself or to the air or to the whiskey in his glass. Ana thinks he might have forgotten that she’s there.

They had been sitting quietly for a long time, just the tinkling of ice in their drinks and the hum of the air conditioner to break the silence. Ana leans back against the headboard, staring out at the city lights, the water beyond stretching into darkness. It must be beautiful here. She wouldn't know. They've barely left the hotel.

“Do you hate him?” she asks.

“He ruined me.” Tom taps a forefinger against the bottle of whiskey sitting at his elbow. “He’s why I’m here,” and Ana knows that he doesn’t mean here in Sydney, he means here, swimming in liquor and regret and shame. She’s only known Tom for three days, but she knows that story by heart. When he’s drunk, which is all the time, he tends to repeat himself.

“Answer the question,” says Ana, taking a sip from her glass.

“No,” sighs Tom. “I don’t hate him.” He stares at the bottle, those cold, blue eyes blurring. “I love him. At least – at least I.” He is silent for a moment. “He doesn’t know that.”

“You could always just tell him,” says Ana.

“It’s not like that, Sarah. It’s more – complicated.” Tom is staring fixedly at the label on the bottle.

“Okay.” Ana thinks of her mother. It makes her tired to think about trying to mend their rift, but the one thing she doesn’t doubt for a minute is that her mother loves her.

She drains her glass. “I’m going to bed.” She looks at him pointedly. He’ll be drinking all night and she needs to get some sleep.

“I’ll leave you then.” He rises to his feet, only wobbling a little. He takes the bottle with him when he goes.

*

Most of the time, Tom's too drunk to get it up. Ana doesn’t mind. The fucking is perfunctory at best, something she lets him have because it really doesn’t matter to her either way, so she might as well. When he comes, he moans the name he’s given her. Sarah. She wonders what that woman was to him and why her name is the one on his lips no matter how drunk he is. She doesn’t ask him.

To her surprise, he turns out to be generous and skilled when it comes to oral sex. She isn’t used to men who’ll go down on her without being asked, and who actually know what they’re doing once they’re down there. Tom zeroes right in on her clit, lapping and licking until she’s shaking and panting and stifling moans with the back of her hand. He sucks her juices out of her when she comes and fucks her slit with his tongue, and then half the time he'll just keep going at it until she comes again.

He doesn’t expect her to reciprocate, that much is clear, and she appreciates it, because trying to get a guy as drunk and used up as Tom is to come is fucking exhausting, and sometimes she just isn’t in the mood.

*

On their fourth afternoon in Sydney, he traces the bullet scars with his tongue, pressing a kiss to each one. It makes her shiver, the distant echo of feeling on the little circles of dead and unresponsive flesh. She looks down and catches his eye, but he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask. No one has ever touched them like that before.

She closes her eyes and spreads her legs when he kisses his way down her stomach. It’s funny how quickly something can grow to be a comfort, she thinks. It doesn’t seem like it should be. It seems like it should be empty and hopeless. Maybe for him it is.

She gasps when he pushes her legs wider, slips his thumbs into the folds of her pussy and pulls her open, licking inside, tongue curling and flicking.

He’s already learned how to make it good for her. She’d bet there've been a lot of women over the years.

When she comes it’s so much stronger than she expects. It slams into her and she arches up, crying out, and she has the strangest sensation of falling, tumbling through the air, the ground rising fast to meet her.

*

She dumps him at some dive bar and drives back to the hotel. It’s enough. She can’t go any further with him. He’s never going back, never climbing out of the hole he’s sunk into. If she doesn’t get out now she’s going to sink down with him.

She’s suddenly desperate to get home, to see her mother again, to make things right. This isn’t who she is.

She says her own name, just to hear it again. “Ana Lucia.”

She’s throwing the few things she’s got with her – some clothes he bought her, her toothbrush – into a carry-on when it strikes her. She still doesn't know his real name, and he doesn't know hers. 

She picks up her purse and coat, gives the room a quick scan to make sure she's not leaving anything behind. When she closes the door behind her the lock clicks into place with reassuring finality.


End file.
